


Lessons in Diplomacy

by thosefarplaces



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 07:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16300682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosefarplaces/pseuds/thosefarplaces
Summary: Kassandra takes her first job on Kephallonia.





	Lessons in Diplomacy

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers through the prologue of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

The first job Markos ever sent her on got her six broken bones.

“It will be simple, little fish,” he had said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Just a misunderstanding that needs clearing up. You have a talk with these boys, we get our money back, and tonight, we feast like kings! Everybody wins!”

She did not know, then, just how tired she would get of that saying.

The boys in question were a local street gang - nameless, unorganized, a group of strays much like her. They had stolen from a friend of Markos - a friend who owed him money - and Markos was not the type to forget a debt.

The boys, naturally, did not care.

She found them in one of Sami’s alleys, tormenting a stray dog. When she called out for them to stop, the biggest of them only laughed.

“We do what we want, gutter rat,” he said, spitting at her feet.

“You’re the gutter rat,” she growled back.

“Oh, really?” He crossed his arms and turned to size her up properly. At his whistle, the other kids formed up around him, leaving the dog to limp away into the shadows. Even the smallest of them was twice her size. The biggest boy grinned, showing off his rotted front teeth. “Here in Sami, we are the gutter _kings_. You’re just another bad smell for the rains to wash away.”

Her first punch landed on his jaw, taking him by surprise. Her second missed, and then two of the other kids had her by the arms. She kicked and elbowed, but in seconds, they had her on the ground. Kicks rained down on her, the boys laughing as she cried out in pain. Every time she raised her arms to protect one spot, they’d find another to target. She heard the first of her ribs break before the pain sank in.

When her mind started to drift in and out of consciousness, Kassandra thought of the cliff.

She could still smell the rain in the air, feel the tension of held lightning. She remembered the look on her baby brother’s face the moment they took him from her. The feeling of her heart breaking in two as the swaddled body fell over the cliff, her desperate rush too late to save him.

She thought there was nothing more they could do to her once Alexios fell. She thought she wasn’t afraid of dying. But then her father took her by the arm and held her over the chasm below.

She remembered the sadness in his eyes as her mother screamed for him to have mercy. Later, during her first seasick days on the boat, she would try to comfort herself with that memory. Perhaps it meant something, his sadness. Perhaps he had still loved her.

“Pater?” she had begged, hating the crack in her voice. “Pater, please.”

But in the end, he let go. And that was when she learned just how much of her heart was still left to break.

Another kick, a sandal stomping on her ankle. There was nothing they could do to her that would hurt worse than that night on the cliffside. There was no room left in her for tears.

She caught the next kick and bit into the boy’s calf, hard. He was still screaming when she threw a knee up and caught his neighbor in the groin. She fought like a whirlwind - not like a warrior, as the man who she once called Pater had taught her, but like a cornered animal with nothing left to lose. She broke the biggest boy’s nose and left him in the gutter with the others, stopping only to spit at his feet.

Markos only had a house in those days, not a vineyard. He came running out when she limped into the yard, carrying the stolen coin. Markos always smiled - when he laughed, when he cried, when he consoled the neighbors about their son’s funeral. This was the first time Kassandra watched the smile fall from his face.

“What did you do, little fish?” he lamented as he carried her inside. Clean linens and water from the kitchen. Herbs dabbed at her cuts that stung like wildfire.

“I got the money, like you asked,” she mumbled through her bruised jaw.

“Yes, but I only needed you to talk to them, little one! I thought you could smile, make a few friends…like Markos always does! Much safer than coming back here like you just wrestled with Ares!”

Markos would not admit that he was a coward, but even then, Kassandra knew the truth. The most he had ever lost was his fortune. He was all she had, but he would never fight for her. He was not a real family.

“This can be an easy life or a hard one, eh? You always have a choice, Kassandra,” Markos said as he cleaned a long cut on her arm.

But in her heart, she knew that choice had already been made for her, the day her old life ended.


End file.
